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AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



Knoxville Industrial Association 



HON. O.'R TEMPLE. 



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KNOXVILLE, TENN.: 
PEINTED BY T. HAWS & CO., 108 GAY STEEET. 

1869. 



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AN ADDRESS 



Agricultural, Mining & Manufacturing Resources of East Tennessee 



The Immigrant, in selecting a new home, naturally inquires, in refer- 
ence to the point in contemplation, concerning the Climate, the Soil, the 
Productions, the Schools and Colleges, the state of Society, the Railroads 
and Markets, the Minerals and Manufactures. 

I propose treating briefly of these several topics. 

Climate. 

East Tennessee lies between the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh parallels 
of Latitude. Its eastern and southern line runs along the extreme height 
of the Stone, the Iron, the Smoky, and the Unicoi or Unaka Mountains, 
which are all parts or outlines of the great Blue Mountain. On the north 
and west, it is separated from Kentucky and Middle Tennessee by the 
Cumberland range. These mountains, especially on the south and east, 
are exceedingly high, rising to the height, in some places, of more than 
gix thousand feet, and at one place exceeding the height of Mount Wash- 
ington. The Valley of East Tennessee lies between these high ranges 01 
mountains. It is about fifty miles wide and two hundred and fifty long. 

From these lofty mountains pour down into the valley the Clinch, the 
Holston, the Watauga, the Nolichucky, the French Broad, the Big Pigeon, 
the Tennessee, the Hiwassee, the Ocoee, and the Emory rivers, besides 
many smaller streams, all finally uniting and forming the beautiful Ten- 
nessee, which sweeps on in its serpentine course for hundreds of miles, 
until it disappears in its not less beautiful sister, the Ohio. The waters 
of these streams, as they dash down from their mountain sources, are as 
clear as crystal, and carry fertility into all the great valley. The rapidity 
of their descent affords countless sites for manufacturing purposes, with 
power sufficient to move, at all seasons, the heaviest machinery. 

Knoxville is the geographical, as well as the commercial, centre of East 



4 ADDRESS. 

Tennessee. It is situated on a high plateau, on the north bank of the 
Holston, a stream that is navigable for steamboats a great part of the year. 
Knoxville is near one thousand feet above the sea level. The extreme 
eastern part of this section of the State is several hundred feet higher, 
while the western part, in the vicinity of Chattanooga and below, is lower 
than Knoxville. The mean elevation of East Tennessee may, therefore, 
be placed at near one thousand feet Its summers are delightful. The 
heat is greatly tempered and modified by the high mountains which sur- 
round the valley, while in winter the force of the winds from the west 
and north is broken and expended against the Cumberland mountains. 
For these reasons our summers are cool, and our winters mild and pleasant. 
Snow seldom falls, and ice rarely exceeds three or four inches in thickness. 
Much of our stock runs out, unprotected, during the whole year. The 
fierce winds which, during a great part of the year, violently sweep over 
the northwestern States, rarely visit in fury this mountain protected region. 
Swamps and stagnant water, so common in the west and further south, 
are almost unknown, except in the lower end of the valley. For this 
reason miasmas and noxious exhalations, except in the region just stated, 
are absolutely unknown. In the region of Knoxville, and in all that East 
of it, we are exempt from chills and ague, the great enemy of the immigrant 
in all the Western and Southern States. No process of acclimation is 
necessary here, whether the immigrant comes from Maine or Pennsylvania, 
from France or Norway. From the first he inhales a pure mountain air, 
and is as exempt from disease as our native mountaineer. lie can come 
with perfect safety during any month in the year. 

From the Meteorological Record, kept at the East Tennessee University, 
at Knoxville, for January, 1868, kindly furnished me by Professor J. K. 
Payne, we have the following facts : 

Mean Temperature for said month at 7 A.M., 32 D 45'; at two P.M., 37° 56'; at 9 P.M., 
35° 12\ 

Mean Temperature for month 35^ 05'. 

Coldest day, January 30th, mean temperature for 24 hours, 20° 16'. 

Warmest day, January 7th, mean temperature for 24 hours, 52° 66'. 

Extreme Temperatures at 7 A.M., U%" and 50?4° ; at 2 P.M., 2334° and 53J< r ; at 9 
P.M., 22° and 51°. 

Mean Baromoter Height reduced to freezing point, at 7 A.M., 29.08 l J inches; at 2 
P.MT, 29 063 inches ; at 9 P.M., 29.0S9 inches 

Mean for 31 days, 29.080. 

The extreme temperatures during the year 1868, were 14° and 92°, 
giving a range of 78°. The range in Ohio is about 105°, in Missouri, 
over 100°, and in Florida, about 75°. 

Mean temperature for 1868, about 60°. 

It is a rare thing for the mercury to sink below 14°, or to rise above 
92°. From 30° to 35° may be assumed as the mean of winter, and from 
65° to 70° the mean of summer. 



ADDRESS. O 

During the month of January of this year, 1869, there were fifteen 
days that were fit for plowing, and every day was fit for out door work. 
Indeed during the whole round of the year, there are but few days, by 
reason of heat or cold, unfit for the ordinary avocations of farm life. We 
are not locked up by the extreme cold and long winters of the north, nor 
worn down and exhausted by the sultry and long summers of the extreme 
south, from the effects of which the short and warm winters are insufficient 
to restore the constitution. A writer in the New York Tribune in January 
last, boasting of the climate of Jacksonville, Florida, states that on the 
21st of December, 1868, the mercury ranged at 85°- 101°- 91°, mean 
temperature for the week, 86°. He says it is "always comfortable in the 
shade, but excessively hot at mid-day in places exposed to the almost 
vertical rays of the sun." With the mercury at 101°, in December, it is 
reasonable to suppose that the shade would be comfortable. On the other 
hand, in Portland, Maine, July 5, 1868, the mercury stood at 98°-110°- 
94°. East Tennessee occupies a golden mean between the extremes, which 
in climate, as in all things else, tends to happiness and safety. 

In all the elements that constitute a health-giving and pleasant climate, 
we boldly challenge a comparison between the figures shown by the re- 
cords of the East Tennessee University, and those shown by the records 
of any other institution east, of the Pacific slope. 

The following statistics of mortality compiled by the Government at 
Washington are such as we migbt expect from such climatic conditions. 



HATE OF MORTALITY. 



Lowlands of the Atlantic Coast from Delaware to Flori- 1 
da, inclusive, including two Counties along the coast,... J 

The lower Mississippi Valles', comprising Louisiana, and) 
a breadth of two counties along each bank of the river ;- 
northward to Cape Girardeux, Missouri, J 

The Alleghany Region, including East Tennessee, 

The region surrounding the Alleghanies. extending to thel 
lowlands of the Atlantic and the Misswsipi valley, I 
and theiefore including Kentucky, Ohio, Indinia, Illi- . 
nois, and Missouri, J 

Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, 

The Pacific Coast, 

Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, 

The whole United States 



DEATHS 
IN 

ISt.O. 


PER 
CENT. 

1 Hill I, 

1.34 


15,292 


30,346 


1.81 


26,346 


1.08 


79,615 


1.32 


15,438 


1.24 


3,991 


0.95 


15,508 


0.98 




1.27 



PER 

CENT. 

1850- 
1.45 



2.38 
0.96 

1.19 

1.25 
0.92 
1.01 
1.41 



It will thus be seen that our per centage of mortality in I860 was 1.08, 
while that of the North Western States was 1.32; and in 1850 ours was 
0.96, while theirs was 1.10. While the per centage of the whole United 



O ADDRESS. 

States was 1.27 in I860 and 1.31 in 1850, ours was for those periods 1.08 
and 0.96. The number of deaths from consumption in Massachusetts 
rom June 1st, 1859, to May 31st, 1860, was 4,845, in a population of 
f,231,066, while in Tennessee, in a population of 1,109,801, the deaths 
from the same cause were 1,430. 

The Soil. 

It would be uncandid to assume that the soil of East Tennesse, as a 
whole, is equal to the virgin soil of most of the Western States. But 
that our natural advantages, as a whole, are equal to those of any other 
State, (perhaps excepting California,) we do boldly assert, and it will be 
the purpose of these pages to make good that proposition. 

The large number of rivers entering the eastern part of the State, and 
flowing down the valley, sometimes for over a hundred miles in almost 
parallel lines, has cut East Tennessee into many long valleys. Some of 
them, such as the New Market and the Sweet Water valleys, are from 
five to eight miles in width, and from twenty-five to fifty miles in length. 
The soil in these valleys was originally of the finest quality, consisting of 
a rich clay loam, and resting on a red clay subsoil. By long unskillful 
cultivation, and by shallow plowing, these fine soils are reduced in produc- 
tive capacity. All they need to restore them is clover, generous treat- 
ment, and an alternation of crops. 

Along the banks of all our rivers and many of our creeks, there are 
bottom lands equal in quality originally, to the best lands on the Missis- 
sippi or Missouri, without the marshes, malaria, or mosquitoes. The 
average yield of these lands, in corn, with good cultivation, is from fifty 
to one hundred bushels per acre. Owing to the length and great number of 
our streams, the quantity of this bottom land is very considerable, some- 
times it spreads out from the river from one to two miles, and bodies of 
many hundreds of acres can be had in a compact form. 

From Kingston, eastward to the Virginia line, it is nearly or quite as 
healthy on the streams as on the rolling lands. Through two-thirds of 
the entire length of East Tennessee, the currents move rapidly and the 
water is therefore pure and sparkling. Up towards their sources the 
mountain trout abound. All over this region, and on almost every hun- 
dred acres, pure, bold and limpid springs gush forth from valley or hill 
side. Running water can be had on nearly every farm and often in every 
field. 

The remaining land not already described consists of rolling, hilly and 
mountainous sections, with innumerable small valleys and coves. In these 
lands gravel, limestone and flint are found. Limestone indeed is found 
nearly everywhere, sand in some places. All the rolling lands seem to 
have a peculiar adaptation for wheat, as well as for clover. This is espe- 
cially so of the upper half of East Tennessee. Besides wheat, clover, 



ADDRESS. 7 

corn, oats, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, timothy, herd grass and buck- 
wheat do well on these lands. 

Prof. Safford of Cumberland University, and formerly State Geologist, 
says in his report in reference to these rolling lands : 

"The soil and agricultural features of the valley of East Tennessee, like 
its rocks, are remarkably various. * * The numerous and delightful 
limestone valleys excel in fertility. In many cases, one side of a ridge, for 
many miles in succession, may be seen covered with beautiful and luxur- 
ient grain up to the very top, while the other, all rock or sand, is worth 
but little more than the firewood upon it. There are extensive strips of 
country which do not partake so much of the ridge or valley character, 
that affords beautiful rolling farms and soils of excellent quality." 

Speaking of the high mountain districts, the same authority says: 

•'On many of them the soil affords a fine growth, and an abundance of 
wild grass and vines, upon which droves of stock are kept and fattened. 
These, at present, wild regions, arc well suited for excellent high land 
pasture grounds, and ought, some day, to be covered with cultivated 
grasses. ' ' 

And the learned author might have added, that these high natural 
pasture fields ought some day to be covered with Angora Goats, or be 
converted into sheep folds. 

Good improved farming lands in East Tennessee can be purchased at 
prices ranging from five to twenty-five dollars per acre. There are lands 
that can be had as low as five dollars or even less. They differ so widely 
in quality that it is impossible to give any fixed scale of prices. 

There is one fact in reference to our soil worthy of especial notice, 
and that is, that experienced and scientific men all concur in the fact 
that, even where it is thoroughly exhausted in appearance, it contains 
the elements of rapid recuperation, by proper treatment, and that it can 
all be brought up to the highest state of fertility and productiveness. It 
quickly responds to kind treatment. 

The Products of the Soil. 

The products of the soil of East Tennessee are exceedingly numerous. 
Occupying a half way position between South Carolina, and the grain 
growing States of the north west, with an altitude greater than either, 
it combines many of the peculiarities of production of each of those re- 
gions. Here the yam, the peach, the water melon mature in luscious 
perfection. The fig also will ripen out doors in this place. 

On the other hand many products, more peculiarly belonging to a 
northern climate, do well in this region, such as wheat, rye, oats, timothy, 
buck wheat, clover, apples, pears and the Irish potato. 

Wheat. — As before remarked, wheat does well in East Tennessee, and 
especially in all that part of it lying East of Knoxville. The soil seems 



8 ADDRESS. 

to be peculiarly adapted to its successful cultivation. Owing to indifferent 
farming generally, and the failure to use fertilizers, the average yield 
per acre is very low. But in the rare cases where proper care has been 
bestowed on the preparation and fertilization of the soil, the yield has 
been as high as from twenty-five to forty bushels. These results, as 
well as the methods which caused them, are exceptional. But they de- 
monstrate what a system of high farming would do for wheat culture in 
this region. The grain is decidedly superior to western wheat, and flour 
made from it commands a higher price in market. 

In one of the letters of Henry C. Carey, of Philadelphia, to the Hon. 
Henry Wilson, occurs this passage : 

' ' Even before the war a great change had commenced in regard to the 
sources from which Northern supplies of cereals were to come, Tennessee 
and North Carolina furnishing large supplies of wheat greatly superior 
in quality to that grown on Northern lands, and commanding higher 
prices in all our markets. The daily quotations show that Southern Flour, 
raised in Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia, brings from three to five dollars 
more per barrel than the best New York Grenessee Flour ; that of Louis- 
ina and Texas is far superior to the former even, owing to the superior 
dryness, and the fact that it contains more gluten, and does not ferment so 
easily. Southern Flour makes better dough and maccaroni than Northern 
or Western Flour, it is better adapted for transportation over the sea, and 
keeps better in the Tropics. It is, therefore, the Flour that is sought after 
for Brazil, Central America, Mexico, and the West Indian markets, which 
are at our doors. A barrel of strictly Southern Flour will make twenty 
pounds more bread than Illinois Flour, because, being so much dryer, it 
takes up more water in making up. ' ' 

The Hon. Wm. D. Kelley, after he had made his tour through the 
South, in the month of September, 1868, delivered an address in St. 
Louis, in which he corroborated the above statements, as to the quality of 
Southern flour, and the capacity of the South to produce it ; and in that 
address he made the remarkable prediction, that the Southern States will 
ultimately supply the Eastern States, and Europe with wheat, and that 
the Northwestern States will supply the whole country, including Louis- 
iana, with sugar made from the beet. 

The wheat harvest of East Tennessee is nearly one month earlier than 
it is in Northern Illinois and in Western New York. Sixty-six pounds 
to the measured bushel, in a good season, is no uncommon weight, and 
sometimes it reaches sixty-eight or seventy pounds. 

Irish Potatoes also do well in this climate. Altitude supplies the 
place of a higher latitude. Their quality, when raised on our high ridges, 
is but little inferior to a northern raised potato. The yield per acre, in 
good soil and in a favorable season, is from one to two hundred bushels, 
and sometimes as much as three hundred, but the latter is an extreme 
case. The peach-blow does finely here. 

Sweet Potatoes do well also, especially in the lower half of East 



ADDRESS. bf 

Tennessee. From one hundred and fifty to two hundred bushels per acre 
is merely a good crop. For stock, they are worth as much per bushel as 
corn. Nothing is perhaps better when boiled for producing rich milk, 
than sweet potatoes. In Louisiana the experiment was tried witb Corn 
and sweet potatoes, on two sets of pigs of the same size and age, and it 
was found that those raised and fattened on potatoes made the most 
bacon. 

Corn is one of the great staples of East Tennessee. Every year mil- 
lions of bushels are sold to our neighbors south of us. Besides vast 
quantities are converted into bacon, beef, horses and mules. The val- 
leys of the Nolichucky, the French Broad and the Tennessee are as fruit- 
ful in corn as are the Miami or the Wabash. In 1860, 50,000,000 
bushels of Corn were raised in Tennessee, against 70,000,000 in Ohio. 
More than one-third of this, and nearly one-half, must have been raised 
in East Tennessee, for the other divisions of the State were largely en- 
gaged in raising cotton and tobacco. For many years corn has been 
worth in this market not less than fifty cents a bushel in the fall, and 
generally more, and by the next summer it usually commands from seven- 
ty-five cents to a dollar. 

Tobacco so far as tried has done well in East Tennessee ; nor is there 
any reason why hemp may not do well on our ric'h soils. Oats also do 
well. So also do all the small vegatables, such as beets, turnips, cabbage, 
carrots, parsnips, peas and beans. 

Apples. — As fine apples as can be desired, will grow on all our high 
ridges. The Cumberland Plateau, all the eastern counties, all our high 
ridges, and all the counties bordering on the Smoky and Cumberland 
Mountains, are peculiarly adapted to their growth and development in 
perfection. By planting on the tops and sides of the ridges, that we 
can produce apples equal in size and quality to the best raised in the 
North, does not admit of a doubt. Such apples can be raised on Black 
Oak Ridge, in Knox county, and on the many high hills within sight 
of this city. In such elevated localities the buds are rarely, if ever, 
killed by the severity of winter, or the bloom killed by the late frosts of 
spring. By proper cultivation, fertilizing and pruning, a good crop can 
confidently be expected nearly every year. That we do not have such 
crops now is owing to the neglect of these things. First quality of apples 
are now (February, 1869,) worth from one to three dollars per bushel in 
Knoxville. What a field is here presented for making money? To say 
nothing of our own market, the whole South, where they can't raise 
apples, and where they are worth more than oranges, lies right at our 
doors. It is amazing that this splendid fruit and this inviting market for 
fortune-making has received so little attention at the hands of our people. 
We do not raise even our own fruit trees. During last fall from fifty to 
one hundred thousand dollars were paid to the agents of fruit men in 






10 ADDRESS. 

Ohio for fruit trees, possibly a much larger sum. Who will establish a 
first class nursery at this place, and make his fortune? 

Peaches, being native to the south, it is natural to expect them to 
ripen here in perfection ; and so they do, with that rich an d melting flavor 
peculiar to them in their native clime. Like the apple, by plant' ng on 
the high ridges, and by proper care in cultivating, pruning and fertilizing, 
a crop can be expected nearly every year. Ripening here from twenty to 
thirty days earlier than in Ohio, and with a much richer flavor, when tho 
Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad is completed, those who are ready to 
supply the Cincinnati market with early Crawford's or early Hale's may 
well expect to reap a golden harvest. 

Pears have not yet been so well tested as peaches or apples, but so far 
as tried they have proved successful. The Bartlett and Seckel have 
succeeded admirably, so far as tested. 

Grapes. — Before the late war the varieties planted here were tho 
Catawba and the Isabella, and here, as nearly every where else, they 
proved unreliable — some years making splendid crops, and sometimes 
failing. Since the war new varieties have been introduced, and, so far as 
they have been tested, they promise to prove an entire success. This is 
particularly true of the Concord. That this justly popular grape, as well 
as the Hartford Proline and the Norton's Virginia and other varieties 
will do as well here on the banks of our rivers as in any part of the 
United States, east of California or New Mexico, does not admit of a 
doubt. 

On this subject Mr. George Husman. a grape grower of Missouri, and 
the author of a standard work, entitled "Grapes and Wine," speaking of 
the advantages of his State for grape culture, says: '"The mountainous 
regions of Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas Texas and Alabama, may per- 
haps rival, and even surpass us in the future, but their inhabitants at 
pr3sent are not of the clay from which grape growers are formed." 

That may have been tiue of us in the past, and even yet, but let the 
author of "Grapes and Wine" remember that, in East Tennessee at 
least, old things are passing away, and that this secluded region, girdled 
round with moutains — this heretofore terra incognita — snuffs from afa r 
the spirit of advancement, and will ere long tread on the heels of her 
most forward sisters, even of Missouri, in all that pertains to material, 
moral and mental progress. 

Grasses. — A few months ago the question incidentally arose, and wai 
gravely discussed in the American Institute Farmers' Club, in the city of 
New York, whether the grasses would grow in the South (including Tennes- 
see in that category,) and the conclusion published to the world was that 
they would not. And yet the Census Report lor I860 shows that our hay 
crop amounted to 146,027 ton-. When said Farmers' Club was reminded 
by a lcttjr from this place that hundreds of cattle live from April to 



ADDBESS. 11 

November on the grass which grows wild on the commons around Knox- 
ville, and grow fat on it, the answer of the Reporter was that the club re- 
ferred to native, spontaneous grasses ; and that the extreme heat of sum- 
mer in the South would kill or parch up the grasses. Still failing to draw 
the distinction between our temperate mountain climate, and the hot, arid 
eand fields of the Cotton States. Thus are we constantly confounded with 
the cotton and rice districts South of us, by persons professing to know, 
when, in truth, East Tennessee more nearly resembles in c'.imate, soil, 
physical geography and productions the State of Pennsylvania than South 
Carolina or A'abauia. In over one-third of Tennessee blue grass grows 
wild ; over another third, including East Tennessee, it grows wild partially, 
and all over this region wherever the land is moderately rich with limestone 
rock, it can be cultivated in great beauty as may be seen in all our yards 
and lawns. In some of our valleys it is voluntarily spreading from year 
to year. But we are not compelled to rely on blue grass. 

Red Clover flourishes everywhere in the greatest perfection. On 
moderately good land from one to two tons is the average yield. On the 
best quality of upland, with a top dressing of plaster obtained just over 
our borders in Virginia, from two to three tons per acre are obtained. 
For forty years our farmers have sown clover for the three-fold purpose of 
hay, pasture and renovation of soil. The argillaceous character of our 
Eoil and the presence everywhere of limestone, render this one of the 
finest clover regions in the United States. I know of no section where i^ 
does better, if so well. 

Timothy, also, does well in East Tennessee, not only on what is termed 
"meadow land," but also on our rich rolling lands, and especially on the 
rich sides and tops of our mountains. On the top of the Smoky moun- 
tain I have seen timothy six feet high. The average yield of this grass 
in suitable land is about equal to clover. 

Herd Grass, on low flat soil does well also, but it is not so much of a 
favorite as clover. Orchard and Hungarian Grass also grow nere. White 
Clover grows wild everywhere. On the sides and tops of our high ridges 
and mountains, vines and wild grasses grow luxuriantly, affording fine 
pastuiage in summer for sheep, cattle and horses. To these mountain 
ranges, in April and May, large herds of cattle are driven, where they 
roam until October or November, when they are driven into the farms fit 
for market. Enterprizing farmers near the Cumberland have made 
fortunes by raising stock in these highland pastures. Georgia and 
Alabama, where clover and timothy do not grow except to a very limited 
extent, afford a never failing market for our hay at prices ranging from 
$1 50 to $2 00 per hundred. These markets are at our very doors. In 
them we can never have a successful rival. The same is true of bacon, 
beef, mutton, corn, apples, Irish potatoes, butter, cheese, eggs, iron, coal, 
and many other articles, which we can produce and they cannot, or which 






12 ADDRESS. 

they cannot produce so cheaply or perfectly as we can. It is, however, 
very poor policy to sell at a distance such articles as hay, and it is to be 
hoped that the day is near by when we will need all that can be produced 
for our dairies and factories at home, when we will csnsume at home the 
raw material, and ship the manufactured products of that raw material. 

Schools and Colleges. 

At all times we have had a plenty of colleges in East Tennessee. The 
first public school West of the Alleghanies was established by Rev. 
Samuel Doa 1, D.D., in Washington county, in 1781, which was afterwards 
known as Washington College. Since the war a free school system has 
been adopted and put into operation, which opens the doors of knowledge 
to every child in the State black or white, rich or poor. Thus is Tennes- 
see moving to the front in the line of progress. This system has imparted 
a new zeal and enthusiasm in behalf of the cause of education. The 
great fact is at last recognized, that to have a prosperous and free people 
you must have an educated people. Knowledge is truly power. Educate 
the ignorant man, and you add to his power more than a hundred fold. 
The State Agricultural College has recently been located at Knoxville as 
a branch of the East Tennessee University. This will make Knoxville 
the attractive centre of the highest educational advantages in the State. 

State op Society. 

The people of East Tennessee are at peace. The outrages of which 
strangers may read are in Middle and West Tennessee. There are no 
Ku Klux outrages here. During the late civil war a very large majority 
of our people sympathized with the National Government. Those who 
took the opposite side in East Tennessee, are to-day law-abiding and 
peaceable citizens, quietly engaged in legitimate business. Many of them, 
po:-s'.bly a large majority, sincerely desire to see immigrants from the 
North settle with us and join in developing our wonderful resources. 
The immigrant will be as safe here as in New York or Pennsylvania. 
This is more certainly true of East Tennessee than of any other part of 
this State or of the South. Perhaps this is the only place where he 
really is safe, but certainly he is safe here. 

Let not East Tennessee be confounded with the other divisions of this 
State, or with other parts of the South. We are a distinct and peculiar 
people. We hail the coming of the immigrant with a hearty welcome, 
and give him the assurance of perfect security, as long as he obeys the 
laws. We point him to our agricultural fields, to our vast mines of iron, 
lead, zinc, coal, copper, ochre and slate, to our vast quarries of marble, to 
our splendid water powers, now "running idly to the sea;" to our grand 
old forests of pine, oak, ash, birch, maple, hickory and walnut; to our 
equable climate as lovely as that of Italy, and invite him to participate 



ADDRESS. 13 

with us in these golclln bounties of Providence so lavishly bestowed on 
this beautiful region. 

Minerals. 

In East Tennessee geological surveys show that we have the following 
minerals, to-wit: coal, iron, lead, copper, zinc, lignite, marble, salt, nitre, 
epsom salts, oxyde of manganese, hydraulic limestone, roofing slate, potters' 
and fire clays, sand for glass, alluminium, ochre and asbestus, not to men- 
tion gold and silver which have been found in limited quantities. 

Stone Coal. — Our great coal field begins near Cumberland Gap, in 
Claibourne county, and extends South and South-west to Middle Tennessee 
and into Alabama, and is confined to the Cumberland range and its cognate 
ridges. Most of this coal region lies in East Tennessee — in fact nearly ail 
of it. The coal is mostly semi-bituminous though in some cases it is 
properly bituminous. Professor Safford, in his report, says that he has no 
hesitation, after reviewing the whole field : 

"In saying that our coal, in good quality and in beds thick enough to 
be profitably worked, is at least equal in the aggregate to a solid stratum 
eight feet thick and co-extensive with the table land, and hence equal to 
four thousand four hundred square miles.'' 

This may be an extravagant estimate, yet it cannot be questioned that 
the quantity is practically inexhaustable. 

In 1865, S. W. Ely, an experienced geologist of Ohio, made an exami- 
nation of this coal region, and in his report to the company which employed 
him, he says : 

"In truth this inestimable mineral is so liberally disposed in the 
structure of the Cumberlands that it would tax the imagination to com- 
prehend the quantity. * * I trust the time is near at hand when 
Cincinnati and Louisville and the interior towns of Kentucky will seek in 
the coals of your Scott county lands an article which exceeds in purity 
and other excellent qualities any I have ever seen from the bituminous 
fields of the North." 

Since the foregoing reports were made the Knoxville and Kentucky 
Railroad has been finished to the coal beds of Anderson county, a distance 
of thirty miles from Knoxville, and the firms of Wilcox & Co., Knoxville 
Iron Company and Mcewen, Wiley & Co., have severally opened mines, 
and they are daily supplying not only Knoxville and many of the smaller 
towns East and West, but they are also shipping coal to At'anta, Augusta, 
and Macon, and also to Nashville and Memphis. At the last two places 
it comes in competition with Pittsburg coal and commands, as I am in- 
formed, a muchhigher price. All our founderies and iron establishments 
(with one of which the honored President of our Association is connected) 
attest the fact that Mr. Ely did notover-estimate the superior quality of 
this coal. The Rockwood Iron Company of Roane county, recently put 
in operation under the skillful supervision of Gen. John T. Wilder, is now 



14 



ADDRESS. 



making the best quality of pig iron from raiv or uhcolced coal. It is said 
to be equal to the Scotch pig. 

Coal is sold and delivered to our citizens in the lump, at 20 cents a 
bushel, or $5 00 a ton; it is sold by wholesale to manufacturers at 15 
cants, or at $3 75 a ton. Our road as yet has only penetrated the out- 
skirts of the great coal region. Beyond these lie the richest beds. The 
coal penetrated by this road, according to the concurrent testimony of all 
competent judges is greatly superior in quality to that found in the lower 
en 1 of East Tennessee. It is stated by those who are competent to give 
an opinion that the coal beds are so located as to be most cheaply and 
advantageously mined. 

Iron.— Iron, unlike coal, is found in the eastern and southern side of 
East Tennessee as well as in the Cumberland range. In the latter region 
iron an J coal are often found side by side. Indeed iron is found all over 
East Tennessee. Prof Safford speaks of three distinct iron regions in 
East Tennessee. 1st, The Eastern, which affords three species of ore, 
namely : the Brown Iron Ore, or Limonite ; Red Iron Ore, or Hematite, 
which is of two varieties, hard solid ore, or stratified dyestone ore, and 
the third species is magnetic iron ore. The second iron region, according 
to the classification of Prof. Safford, is what is termed the dye stone or 
FcHsiliferous region. It lies at the base of the Cumberland and Walden's 
Ridge and extends from Hancock county to Alabama. It is found in great 
abundance all along this region. This region is said by geologists to ex- 
ten 1 from Alabama to Pennsylvania. The third iron region is the Cum- 
berland, which is associated with the coal measures on the mountain. In 
this region Prof. Safford discovered— in Anderson, Morgan, Scott and 
Campbell counties— what is called Clay Iron-Stone, or an impure car- 
bonate of iron, not before found in Tennessee. 

In Washington county there is a remarkable region of Brown Hematite 
ore on the Embryville property. This property consists of 50,000 acres. 
It is said that less than two tons of the ore are required to make a ton of 
pig iron. The iron made of this ore has been celebrated for years as the 
best, or among the best in the country. Capt. E. J. Brooks, from whom 
I derive the above facts, says : 

"I cannot better describe the property than by saying that half the 
property is vast hills of iron from base to summit, the water power at 
the furnace is the best in East Tennessee that I have seen, there being 
fourteen feet fall on a front of one-eighth of a mile." 

In addition to iron there is found on this same property immense de- 
posits of yellow, brown and Van Dyke ochre, and most probably lead. 
Near by Calvin Colt is now taking out granulated galena, found in soft 
blu2 lime rock from a vein forty feet in thickness. 

The iron made of the ores we have so imperfectly described has long 
been celebrated for its superior quality. Since the war a new impetus 



ADDRESS. 



15 



has been given to the manufacture of iron, especially in Greene and Roane 
counties, in earn of which new and costly establishments have just gone 
into successful operation. At Rockwood they are now manufacturing pig ^ 
iron at a cost of twenty-six dollars a ton. The average cost in Great 
Britain is about twenty dollars a ton, and in the United State, about forty 
dollars. Here it is manufactured for twenty-six, and an experienced iron 
master informed the writer that it could be manufactured for much less. 
Our founderies pay for East Tennessee iron from forty to fifty dollars, the 
price depanding on tb.3 kind and quality. Temnssea iron is quoted in 
Louisville at four dollars higher per ton than the best northern iron, lhe 
iron at Rockwood is made out of the fossiliferous or lenticular ore. The 
main bed of this ore commences in Claibourne county, below Tazewell, 
and extends through Campbell, Anderson, Roane and into Rhea. Prof. 
Saffbrd savs "it is nearly or quite one hundred miles long ; at many points 
two and three feet in thickness." He particularly speaks of Elk Fork 
in Campbell county, as "a remarkable and valuable locality of this ore," 
where, "owing to the great number of minor folds or wrinkles in the 
rock, the ore layer is repeated a great number of times, and crops out in 
numerous parallel bands for a distance of five or six miles ; many of these 
are from twenty inches to three feet thick. In some places it is six feet 
thick. The Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad passes through this iron 
region. Coal also abounds in vast quantities in the Elk Fork Valley. 
There is a similar deposit of iron and coal at Wheeler's Gap, also on the 

railroad. 

From a communisation from the Hon. J. W. North, an iron manufac- 
turer, and President of this Association, I make the following extracts : 

"Within eight miles of Knoxville are abundant beds of iron; and 
within twenty miles there is a body of iron said to be nearly equal in 
Quantity to the Iron Mountain of Missouri and of precisely the same 
Quality * * No country of the world furnishes mineral wealth more 
convenient in locality, superior in quality, greater in variety, or easier ot 
access than arc our vast deposits. Almost every county , .ossesses a wealth 
of iron sufficient to enrich a State or pay the debt ot a nation ; and the 
facilities for manufacturing arc as great as the mineral is abundant, t < m- 
venient water power, an unlimited supply of timber ami bituminous coal, 
cheap food and cheap labor, furnish all the facilities for producing iron 
cheaplv and in unlimited quantity. A distinguished iron manufacturer 
from New York gave it as his opinion that iron could be made by charcoal 
at one of the mines of East Tennessee and hauled ten miles to the rail- 
road at one-half the cost of producing a similar article m the JNortn It 
that can be done widi charcoal ten miles from the radroad, what shall be 
said of mines equally rich and exhaustless lying where the railroad track 
cuts the ore-bed and where coal banks are as abundant as the iron t 

"Along the line of the Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad, not titty 
miles from Knoxville, are numerous properties now offered tor sale at 
moderate prices where iron and coal lie side by side in limitless quantities 
and surrounded by beautiful forests of choice timber, with lime and sand- 



16 ADDRESS. 

stone, fire clay and water power close at hand, all waiting, as they have 
waited for ages, for the magic touch of industry to convert them to use. 
Tn some localities these iron beds are pierced for the first time by the cuts on 
our railroads; and yet, such is the blindness of our present policy, that 
we bring from beyond the Atlantic the iron rails to construct a rood -upon 
our own iron beds! More than two million of dollars have been sent out 
of East Tennessee since the war for iron and iron wares that should have 
been produced at home. With such a fact before us there can be no 
question of a home market for all we can produce. The foundery-men of 
Knoxville have, until the present time, been compelled to purchase iron 
brought from Scotland to produce a suitable mixture for soft, light and 
thin castings. On one car load of seven tons of this iron they have to 
pay more than $180 00 freight, being more than $25 50 per ton. There 
are numerous places in East Tennessee where similar iron could be pro- 
duced profitably at less than the cost of this freight alone, saying nothing 
of the price of the iron. 

"The iron of Carter county has borne a reputation for nearly seventy 
years unsurpassed by any in the United States for toughness and adapta- 
bility to every use. The castings of this iron will bend before breaking, 
and car wheels made of it have worn more than twelve years on our rail- 
roads. And yet there is not a blast furnace in operation in that county at 
this time, and we import from abroad, at vast expense the iron that 
might be obtained from these mines at one-third the price we are now 
paying. The Telico Iron Works of Monroe county, more celebrated than 
those of Carter, with iron equal in quality and much greater in quantity, 
have been! idle for years, producing nothing. Two furnaces now carried 
on by northern companies in Greene county and one recently established 
by Gen. Wilder and his associates in Roane county, are now producing 
three times the iron that is produced by all the old furnaces of East Ten- 
nessee ; yet all of them together do not produce as much per day as some 
single establishments in Pennsylvania. 

'"But the manufacture of iron from the ore, though it might produce 
millions of dollars annually in most of the counties of East Tennessee, is 
but the beginning of its profitable manufacture. 

Ten dollars worth of Ore, when changed to Pig, is worth . $40 

In Bar Iron, it is worth 120 

In Horse Shoes, it is worth 250 

In Axes, it is worth 350 

In Knife Blades, it is worth ....... 78,840 

In Balance Springs of Watches, it is worth . . . 6,000,000 

This is but a hint at what may may be done by applying capital, skill 
and labor to the boundless wealth of our iron mines." 

Other Minerals. — Space forbids me to speak in detail of our other 
minerals. Copper is found in vast quantities at Ducktown, Polk county, 
and it is believed to exist in other parts of the mountains that skirt our 
southern borders. It is sufficient to say, that, next after the Lake Su- 
perior mines, the Ducktown mines yield the most copper of any in the 
United States. 

Zinc is abundant in East Tennessee, as the Zinc Works recently ereoted 
at Mossy Creek have clearly established. There is a fine zinc bed or vein 
in Knox county, within twelve miles of Knoxville, even better than that 
at Mossy Creek. 



•ADDRESS. 17 

As to our marble, let the Capitol at Washington bear witness. It is 
found everywhere, and is nearly as common as limestone rock. We have 
every shade of color, such as white and black and variegated of every 
shade. It lies all around Knoxville. There is but one road leading out of 
the place that does not, in less than three miles of the town, pass over the 
finest variegated marble. Even our side walks and McAdamized roads 
are made in part of the very kind of marble that adorns the interior of 
the National Capitol. It is valued but little higher than limestone ; and 
yet in our marble quarries there is wealth sufficient to pay our State debt. 
A car load of it, when placed on the car, is worth one hundred dollars 
more than a car load of wheat. 

Manufactures. 

Manufactures are yet in their infancy in East Tennessee. With the 
exception of a few furnaces, two or three founderies, one nail factory, four 
or five cotton yarn factories, a steam tannery or two, some plow factories, 
a soap factory, a few steam saw mills, one zinc establishment, a few rolling 
mills, and a few other minor establishments, siich as every community is 
compelled to have, we are just where we were fifty years ago. In this 
respect we offer all the advantages of choice and monopoly of a new State. 
There is one factory in the State for weaving woolen goods, but there is not 
one for weaving cotton goods, beyond plain brown domestic. 

We import from other States all of our reapers, mowers, threshers 
and engines"; all of our chains, axes, shovels, spades, hoes, rakes, forks, 
wire, sheet-iron, iron pipe, hinges, scythes, picks, willow-ware and rope, 
and even our axe and pick handles and wagon spokes, most of our plows, 
brooms, furniture, wooden-ware, fire grates, stoves, corn shellers, horse 
shoes and horse shoe nails, domestic, prints, woolens, boots, shoes, hats, 
clothing, horse collars ; most of our carriages and many of our wagons, 
besides hundreds of other articles. The average cost of transportation 
upon thirty of these articles, as I learn from a leading hardware house, is 
seventeen per cent, as compared with the original cost. On stoves it is 
from twenty to twenty- five per cent.; on reapers, mowers and threshers, 
fifty per cent. , and on fire-proof brick one hundred per cent. Hundreds 
of reapers and mowers are sold here that are manufactured in Chicago or 
Ohio ; plows and axes and even horse shoes are brought from Connecticut ; 
stoves are brought from Albany, Philadelphia and Cincinnati ; carriages 
are brought from New Hampshire ; even brooms are brought from New 
York. So it is of all articles except those which are the most simple in 
their construction. Nor is East Tennessee peculiar in this respect. The 
same is true of the whole South. In the past the South has been as de- 
pendent on the North as the colonies were on England. For fifty years 
the policy, ami folly as well, of the South, was to raise and sell cotton, and 
with the proceeds ) mrchase her supplies in the cheapest market. In other 



18 ADDRESS. 

words, she discouraged manufacturing and devoted herself to raising and 
selling the raw material. All were producers. The result was there was 
no home market. So far was this spirit carried that even a market in a 
foreign land was preferred. There was no diversity of lahor. 

In a celebrated work, entitled "Cotton is King," which sets forth most 
candidly the old policy of the controlling party of the south, it is said : 

"A manufacturing population with its mechanical coadjutors in the 
midst of the provision growers, on a scale such as the protective policy 
contemplated, it was conceived, would create a permanent market for their 
products and enhance the price; whereas if this manufacturing could be 
prevented, and a system of tree trade be adopted, the south would consti- 
tute the principal provision market of the country, and the fertile lands 
of the north supply the cheap food demanded for their slaves. ' ' 

Again : 

" If they (the southern planters) could establish free trade, it would 
insure the American market to foreign manufacturers, secure the foreign 
markets for their leading staples, repress home manufactures, force a large 
'number of northern men into agriculture, multiply the growth and diminish 
the price of provisions, feed and clothe their slaves at lower rates, &c. 

Again, after speaking of the policy of the south in opposing the exten- 
sion of railroads into the west, and the improvement of her rivers and 
the building of canals, in order to make the west dependent on the plant- 
ers of the south for a market for her grain, the same book says : 

" Opponents no longer, they (the west) were harmonized by the fusion 
of their interests, the connecting link between them being the steamboat. 
Thus also was a tri-partite alliance formed by which the western farmer, the 
southern planter and the English manufacturer, become united in a common 
bond of interest, the whole giving their support to the doctrine of free trade." 

Under such a system, a fortunate few, the great land and slave proprie- 
tors, grew rich, while the great body of the population remained poor or 
were forced to emigrate to the west. The result was constant streams of 
population, the bone, sinew and wealth of the country, moved to the free 
States of the west, where, in spite of the efforts of the south to confine 
it to grain growing alone, the spirit of manufacturing early manifested 
itself. The latter grew mighty in wealth and population, while the south 
languished in her own narrow and soulless exclusiveness. While assum- 
ing to be the most independent people in the world, they were in fact the 
most dependent They raised cotton with northern plows and hoes, baled 
it in northern bagging, shipped it in northern vessels, sold it -in a northern 
market, and received their pay in northern fabrics or in goods imported by 
northern merchants. In other words, they purchased hack their cotton 
in new forms from the northern manufacturer. Look at this system for a 
moment, A bale of cotton rained in Mississippi was first sent to a com- 
mission house in New Orleans, which, after being insured, was shipped 



ADDRESS. 



19 



to New York for sale, where it was sold to the manufacturer in Lowell, 
who converted it into domestic or osnaburg, and then sent it to his agent 
in New York, who sold it to the jobber, and he to the retail merchant of 
Mississippi, who returned home and sold it to the planter. Finally, the 
same bale of cotton, after traveling from Mississippi to Massachusetts, 
and being taxed by way of profits in a dozen hands, arrives on the same 
plantation where it was raised. By such a system, the few might grow 
rich, but the country was compelled to grow poor. There was no room 
for the small farmer, the hope and stay of the land. There was no 
reward for skilled labor, because there was no competition for it. An able 
political economist, Henry C. Gary, has truthfully remarked that "com- 
petition for the purchase of labor makes men and women free." The 
same writer says: "that the raising of raw produce for the supply of 
distant markets is the proper work of the slave and barbarian, and of 
those alone. 

Under this system, South Carolina scarcely moved for half a century. 
Under an opposite system, New England marched to wealth and empire. 
While the north and west, under a system of diversified labor, was mov- 
ing forward, the south sat still, hugging her idol of free trade, repelling 
immigration, discouraging manufactures, pouring her great wealth into 
the lap of the north, and riveting on her own noble limbs the chains of a 
commercial vassalage such as will be the wonder of future history. 

Without manufactures there can be no diversity of labor ; and without 
a diversified labor, labor will have no adequate reward. It is obvious that 
if all our people were to engage in the same pursuit, speedy ruin would 
be the result. This has been the precise course of the south. Nothing 
but the fact that she had a monopoly of the great staple of the world 
saved her from ruin forty years ago. So, too, the people of East Ten- 
nessee have had but one calling ; and nothing but our primitive habits and 
the fact that we had a tolerable market for our grain and stock in the cot- 
ton regions saved us from ruin. But no arithmetic can estimate the tax 
that has been imposed upon us. In the upper part of East Tennessee, 
within fifteen years past, our farmers hauled, with teams, their flour and 
bacon, butter and eggs, apples and ginseng, across the Blue Ridge to Au- 
gusta, Georgia, and exchanged them for rice, sugar, coffee, molasses, do- 
mestic and nails. It required a month to make the trip. At this day, 
instead of exchanging at our doors our wheat and corn, our beef and pork, 
our hay and butter, for plows, prints, domestics, hoes, spades, reapers and 
mowers, we are forced to make these exchanges in New York or Boston. 
In other words, we go to Massachusetts to purchase cotton from our neigh- 
bors of Georgia. No wonder we are poor. The wonder is we are not 
bankrupt, Such a system offers no reward for intelligence, for discoveries 
or inventions, or for progress. All is and must be a Dead Sea calm. But 
for the opening of our railroads, the next century would have found us 
still hauling our bacon and flour over the mountains to Augusta. 



20 ADDRESS. 

In the year 1677 England sold raw materials to the Dutch and bought 
back from them her manufactures. In this year Andrew Yarrinton wrote 
a pamphlet in England, one object of which was, as he states, to show 
"how to outdo the Dutch without fighting," and to relieve his people 
from the taunt of the Dutch that ' ' they sold their whole skins for a six 
pence and bought back the tails for a shilling. ' ' Under the influence of 
that pamphlet and the navigation act, the policy of England was reversed. 
She commenced importing the raw material and exporting manufactures. 
She had coal and iron and she fostered her rising manufactures by legisla- 
tion, and the result was she became the workshop as well as the mistress 
of the world. The industry of all nations was laid under contribution ; 
vast sums of money were expended by her, and sometimes vast sacrifices 
were submitted to by her capitalists, in stifling the manufactures of her 
rivals. In 1750 Andrew Gee, in a work on trade, said: 

"Manufactures in our American colonies should be discouraged, prohib- 
ited. * * We ought always to keep a watchful eye over our colonies 
to restrain them from setting up any of the manufactures which are 
carried on in Great Britain, and any such attempts should be crushed at 
the beginning. ' ' 

As late as 1854, in a report made to Parliament by a commission, it is 
said : 

' ' That the laboring classes generally, and especially in the iron and coal 
districts, are very little aware of the extent to which they are often in- 
debted for being employed at all, to the immense losses which their employ- 
ers voluntarily incur in bad times in order to destroy foreign competition 
and t<> gain and keep possession of foreign markets." 

Free trade, of which England is the champion, means, with her, free 
ingress for raw materials for the consumption of her factories and for food 
for her operatives, and for such articles as she cannot produce, and nothing 
beyond. Thus she formerly invited and forced all nations to make their 
exchanges in Manchester and Liverpool. By adopting a similar policy, 
France and Germany are the only nations that are independent of her. I 
quote an extract from a very able speech of the Hon. W. D. Kelley, on 
" Protection to American Labor," to whom I am indebted for many of the 
foregoing extracts : 

" No sooner had the First Consul, Bonaparte, grasped with a firm hand 
the reigns of State, than he resolved to develop upon the French soil all 
the elements of wealth concealed within its bosom. He wished to appro- 
priate for France all sciences, arts and industries. Made a member of the 
Institute, he uttered this noble sentiment : " The true power of the French 
Republic should consist, above all, in its not allowing a single new idea to 
exist which if does not make its own.' * * Napoleon said: ' Spain has 
twenty-five million merinos : I wish France to have a hundred million. ' 
To effect this, among other administrative acts, he established sixty addi. 
tional sheep-folds to those of Kambouillet. ' ' 



ADDRESS. 21 

Notwithstanding all these lights, we still ship raw material to England, 
and bring back her manufactures. We are, to-day, importing iron at the 
monthly rate of $2,000,000 worth, and paying for it in gold. Domestic 
iron, in all its forms, is highly taxed by an excise duty of our Government, 
while railroad iron, the most important of all, is admitted from abroad 
with a trifling duty. The result of this policy is to depress domestic man- 
ufactures, to open the door to the British ironmaster. 

The Local Effects of Manufacturing Establishments. 

To show the effect that manufactures have upon the community in 
which they are located, I refer to the Cambria Iron Works at Johnstown, 
Pennsylvania, as communicated by their Superintendent to the Commis- 
sioner of Internal Revenue. The quantity of food annually consumed by 
those dependent on the Company is : beef cattle, 2,000 head ; sheep, 
3,000 head; swine, 4,000; flour, 20,000 barrels. These works afford a 
market for all kinds of farm produce. Unimproved land within seven 
miles is worth from $150 00 to $200 00 per acre; and its influence on 
realt estate is felt for forty miles. Land lying beyond the influence of the 
Iron Works is only worth $20 00 per acre. In 1854-5, this establishment 
paid to its hands $2,995,270. Much of this money went into the hands of 
the farmers. 

From the able report made by Capt. A. J. Ricks to this Association a 
short time since, I extract the following facts in reference to two estab- 
lishments for the manufacture of Agricultural Implements at Massillon, 
Stark county, Ohio. There were manufactured by these two establish- 
ments, in 1868, 

800 Threshers, at an average cost of $550, $440,000 

4,500 Reapers and Mowers, at an average cost of $50, . . 675,000 

$1,115,000 

They used in the manufacture of these articles the following material : 

1,160,000 feet of Lumber, costing $28 per 1,000, . . . . . $32,000 
1,200 tons of Bar and Wrought Iron, at an average cost of $100 

per ton, 120,000 

128 tons of Steel, at an average cost of $250 per ton, . . . 32,000 

1,800 tons of Pig Iron at an average cost of $60 per ton, . . . 108,000 

1,500 tons of Cast Iron, at an average cost of $100 per ton, . . 150,000 

425 Mechanics and Laborers, at an average of $2 per day, . . 265,625 

7,500 tons of Coal, at $5 per ton 57,500 

Making a total of expenditure of $745,605 

There the farmer has a home market for his surplus at his very door. 
He sells his produce high, and purchases his farm implements low. He 
saves the cost of transportation on his produce to market, and on his farm 
implements from market. With us, the cost on these articles, probably 
from these very establishments, amounts to from thirty-three to fifty per 



22 ADDRESS. 

cent. Yet there is not an article that enters into their construction that 
cannot be had as cheaply in Knoxville as in Massillon, and several of them 
much cheaper. Lumber, as good as any in the land, can be had here at 
from $1 5 00 to $18 00, against $28 there ; coal can be had at $3 75 per 
ton, against $5 00 there ; pig iron at $40 00 per ton, against $60 00 there. 
If the manufacturer at Massillon makes a profit of 33 per cent. , and the 
cost of delivery here 33 per cent, more, what a margin for profits for an 
establishment of the kind at this place ? This view leaves out of considera- 
tion the division of labor, and the creation of a home market for the ben- 
efit of all other elasses, resulting from such an establishment. 

To further illustrate this idea, I quote from a report of a committee, 
made to a former Legislature of our State. The report says : 

" Assuming the average cotton crop of Tennessee to be 200,000 bales, 
and the price fifteen cents per pound, our people realize for the raw ma- 
terial $13,500,000. This is manufactured in the North and elsewhere out 
of the State, and returned to us in prints, brown and bleached cotton 
cloths or fabrics, of which four yards to the pound may be regarded as a 
mean average, making an aggregate of 360,000,000 yards. This, at fif- 
teen cents per pound, makes the sum of $54,000,000. Now, if we deduct 
the cost of material, we have $40, .300,000. which is the sum paid on the 
premium given by our people to encourage the labor, skill and capital in 
other States. 

To recapitulate : 

For Cotton fabrics §40,000,000 

For Woolen fabrics 15,000,000 

For Boots and Sboes 5,000,000 

For Furniture 2,500,000 

For Agricultural Implements 1,500,000 

For Hardware 2,500,000 

§67,000/100 

To show that the foregoing calculations in reference to cotton are not 
very extravagant. T quote from the United States Economist mid Dry 
Goods Reporter, as to the value of stocks in some of the leading cotton 
mills in the North : 

Massachusetts Cotton Mills, (par value 8100,) 997 

Middlesex Manufacturing Company, (par value §100,) 214 @ 215 

Laurens Manufacturing Company, " 902% 

Merrimack Manufacturing Company. " 1315 

Androscoggin Mills, " 185 

Pepperel Manufacturing Company. " 1105 

Pacific Mills, " " 2012%r«,2015 

Nashua Mills, " " 1275 

Chicopee Manufacturing Company, " 275 

Salisbury Manufacturing Company, " " 270}' a 

Boot Cotton Mills, " " 1080 

Laconia Manufacturing Company, " 1200 

Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, " " 1312% 

Great Falls Manufacturing Company, " " 215 



ADDRESS. 23 

The average value of the stock of these fifteen companies thus appears 
to be 874J dollars per share on the $100 paid in capital. 

Knoxvelle as a Manufacturing Point. 

We boldly assvm& that no "point m the South or Southwest, all things 
considered, commands so muni/ adva/ntages for cheap and profitahh man- 

ufactnring as KnoxvtUe. Let facts speak : 

1. Our climate, as has already been shown, is perfectly healthy. It is 
emphatically a temperate climate. Out door work can he done the whole 
year round. We neither have the long and hot, and therefore exhaust- 
ing summers of the South, nor the long and icy winters of the North. 
Our summers, indeed, are not so hot as they are further Ninth. Our 
altitude and the lofty mountains which surround us. account for this ap- 
parent phenomenon. Our productions are not restricted, hut admit of a 
greater diversity and a wider range than can anywhere else be found. 
Neither summer nor winter produces enervation, or invites or necessitates 
idleness. There are no sudden changes of temperature such as charac- 
terize a Western climate, where the imprisoned winds career in wild fury 
over the woodless prairies. 

2. Labor is cheap, and must remain so, because provisions are abun- 
dant and cheap. Farm labor is worth, by the month, for the year round, 
with board, from ten to twelve dollars; mechanical labor from two to 
three dollars per day. 

3. Provisions are cheap and abundant. Our remoteness from the great 
centers of trade forbids the carrying of many of our bulky articles to these 
distant markets. They must be consumed at home. We raise cattle, 
sheep and swine, as well as cereals and esculent roots. The immense 
supplies drawn from this valley, by both armies during the late civil war, 
forever established its character as one of the most productive spots in all 
the land. In 1860, Tennessee produced 50,748,226 bushels of corn, 
5,409,863 bushels of wheat, 7,703,086 bushels of oats, 550,913 bushels of 
peas and beans, 1,174,647 bushels of Irish potatoes, 2,613,558 bushels of 
sweet potatoes, 246,027 tons of hay, and slaughtered $12,345,696 worth 
of animals. Nearly one-half of all this, except sweet potatoes, peas and 
beans, should be credited to East Tennessee, because this is the region 
where these things do most flourish, the other divisions of the State be- 
ing engaged in raising cotton and tobacco. Before the war, it was esti- 
mated that East Tennessee annually furnished for the Southern markets 
100,000 live hogs, besides vast quantities of bacon, as well as horses, 
mules, cattle and sheep. This region is a grain, growing, a grass pro- 
ducing, and a stock raking country. It is good for all, and this enumera- 
tion covers the whole field of supply. 

4. Iron and coal can be had here as cheaply as can be desired. They 
are brought by the rivers and by the railroads. Then, combine with iron 



24 ADDRESS. 

and coal, cheap labor, cheap food, a mild climate, and a vast country des- 
titute of nearly every article made of iron, wood, steel, cotton or wool, 
and there is presented a market for sale and profit. Such is our position. 

5. We are situated on the very borders of the cotton region, where 
they have not cheap food, and therefore they cannot have cheap labor. 
In this cotton region, except in limited quantities in Alabama, they have 
no coal, and therefore it must be costly. There is no district in the 
South, except the small district in Alabama, where coal and iron, cheap 
meat and cheap grain are found together as they are at Knoxville. Be- 
sides, the climate further South is enervatina'. and therefore it cannot 
compete with us. We daily send from this point to Alabama and 
Georgia, bacon, corn, beef, Irish potatoes, butter, eggs and hay, and that 
fact demonstrates the inability of those regions to compete with us in 
cheap food and labor. The Cotton States may manufacture cotton, but 
beyond they cannot go, if our people are true t<> their splendid opportu- 
nities. We can undersell than. We can and will manufacture for them 
all the multiform products of iron, wool and wood. There is the great 
market for our rising factories. And sooner or later New England will 
be forced to transfer her machinery for all the heavier manufactured 
articles to the Alleghany District, on the borders of the cotton fields, or 
stop the whirl of her spindles. 

Senator Sprague, with true practical statesmanship, sees that the for- 
mer false and fatal policy of the South is at an end, and he is quietly 
purchasing favorable sites for machinery. He knows, as every man will 
know in the end, that it is cheaper to manufacture, out of Southern pro- 
ducts, for the Soiit/i, in tin Smith, than in Rhode Island. But others 
will see, what he has failed to see, that it is cheaper to ca/rry the cotton /<> 
the borders of the grain and food district, where fuel mid labor arc cheap, 
than to carry food and fuel to the cotton district, where it alone is cheap, 
mill till things else are dear. 

6. The sixth reason why Knoxville affords remarkable facilities for 
manufacturing is, that it is the center of a magnificent railroad si/stem, 
and therefore affords an outlet to market in every direction. At this 
point the great through road from Washington and New York to New 
Orleans, will intersect the great road cutting the other at right angles, 
from Charleston and Savannah to Cincinnati. The former is completed, 
the latter under way. By the East Tennessee and Virginia Road, we 
enter Virginia, and traveling through the heart of that State, we reach, 
by a direct route. Washington and New York. By the East Tennessee 
and Georgia Road, by way of Dalton, we reach Atlanta and the whole 
railroad system of Georgia. By the same road, by way of Chattanooga 
and Wills Valley, we strike the heart of Alabama, and reach, by a direct 
line. Mobile and New Orleans; while by the same road, by way of Chat- 
tanooga, we reach Stevenson, and then turn to Nashville, or go direct to 



ADDRESS. 25 

Memphis. By the Knoxville and Kentucky Road, now completed to the 
coal fields, and being pushed forward to Kentucky, we reach Cincinnati, 
Louisville and the Great West, by a route two hundred miles nearer 
than by way of Nashville. While by the Knoxville and Charleston Road, 
or the Rabun Gap Road, we will go directly to Augusta, Charleston and 
Savannah. And by the East Tennessee and Virginia Road, and the 
Morristown and Paint Rock Road, we will reach the heart of North Car- 
olina and strike her system of roads. Tliis road is completed to within 
four miles of the North Carolina line. And by the Tennessee and Pacific 
Road, when completed, we will have a direct road to St. Louis. 

It will thus be seen that our railroad system, when completed, will be 
as perfect as can be desired. By it we can reach every important city in 
the country by the shortest route. Our interior central position gives us the 
interior and shortest lines to every important market. We can choose be- 
tween them. If bacon or flour, or any other article, is low in Augusta or 
Charleston, they may be high in Cincinnati or New York. Or if they 
are low in the latter cities, they may be high in the former ; and as the 
difference in the distance to each is not great, all we have to do is to 
choose the highest and the best. This latitude of choice of market does 
not exist as to persons living at either end or on either side of the Union. 
Here, then, will be needed, and here is now springing up with wonderful 
rapidity, a great interior town or depot, for the exchange, manufacture 
and distribution of commodities and supplies for and between this and 
all the adjoining States. 

Whether viewed as the center of a rich agricultural region, or in refer- 
ence to its climate, unequalled this side of the Pacific coast, or as the cen- 
tre of a region wonderfully rich in all the great minerals except gold and 
silver, or as being the point of intersection of two great railroad lines, 
that more nearly than any other lines in the country, cut all the region 
east of St. Louis and Omaha into four nearly equal parts ; or viewed 
geographically as the precise center of East Tennessee ; or, enlarging the 
circle, as the center of a larger region, in which it is the largest town, 
whose circumference sweeps around from Lexington to Louisville, from 
Louisville to Nashville, from Nashville to Atlanta, and from Atlanta, by 
a wide circuit, round to Lynchburg, the position of Knoxville is a most 
commanding one. There are no large competing towns near us. Atlanta 
is the nearest, and it is distant two hundred and ten miles, while Lynch- 
burg is distant three hundred and thirty miles. Little does he know of 
the laws of trade who supposes that a large interior town will not spring 
up in the center of a country destined soon to witness the highest devel- 
opment of agriculture, and to become an iron district, with all its attendant 
manufactures, unsurpassed by any in the country. This vast region, 
now, for the first time, awaking into real life, and to the realization of the 
prodigal bounties of Providence, will afford a golden harvest for the en- 



26 ADDEESS. 

terprising manufacturers who shall first boldly enter it with skill and 
capital. 

Henry C. Cary, in one of his splendid letters to the Hon. Henry 
Wilson, says : 

"The great back bone of the Union is found in the ridge of mountains 
which commences in Alabama, but little distant from the Gulf of Mexico, 
and extends northward. * * That you may fully satisfy your- 

self on this head, I ask you to take the map and pass your eye down the 
Alleghany ridge, flanked, as it is, by the Cumberland range on the West, 
and by that of the Blue Mountains on the east, giving, in the very heart 
of the south itself, a country larger than all Great Britain, in which the 
finest of climates is found, in connection with land abounding in coal, 
salt, limestone, iron ore, gold, and almost every other material required 
for the development of a varied industry, and for securing the highest de- 
gree of agricultural wealth." 

Again, speaking of the facilities ef the South to reach the markets of 
the world with her products in their original forms, and the facility with 
which her wheat and sweet potatoes may be converted into cotton, or 
oranges, and other fruits, he says : 

"Seeing these things, and seeing further, that its whole upland coun- 
try presents one of the most magnificent climates of the world, can it be 
doubted that the day is at hand when emigration to the south and south- 
west must take place now occupied by emigration to the west, and when 
power is to pass from the poor soils of the northwest to those richer ones 
which now offer themselves in such vast abundance in the center, the 
south and southwest ? As I think, it cannot. ' ' 

Such is the picture, drawn by a stranger's hand, of this splendid region. 
Does any man suppose that our people, with such a country, and with 
such inestimable advantages, with light breaking upon them from every 
quarter, and with their minds freed from the narrow ideas of other days, 
will much longer consent to pay tribute to distant States, when the means 
f a glorious independence are under their very feet? Let us hope, 
rather, that they will imitate the grand idea of the First Consul of 
France, in not allowing a "single new idea to exist" which they do not 
make their own, and that they will appropriate to their use, " all sciences, 
arts and industries." 



